


Correspondence Across the Sea

by drygin



Series: Birchcaster [3]
Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: Banter, Bonny breaks into a coffeehouse, Card Games, Drinking Irresponsibly, F/F, Marius is there too, and Nancy's heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:48:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27554854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drygin/pseuds/drygin
Summary: On her second trip to London, Bonny reunites with Nancy.
Relationships: Nancy Birch/Bonny Lancaster, Nancy Birch/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Birchcaster [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805314
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	Correspondence Across the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place after the events of "Look At Me and Tell Me I'm No Broken Thing". Hope you enjoy!

At first, Nancy thinks the scrawny boy who shows up on her doorstep has come to beg for food. He grins at her with a mouth full of more gaps than teeth and extends a folded letter to her. When she reaches out to take it, he pulls his hand back, tilting his head slyly. She glares at him with a stern look that would terrify most men but pats her pockets until she finds tuppence to give him.

Only when the boy has scurried off does she shut the door, turn around, and let the smile spread across her face. With the letter clutched in one hand and her birch in the other, she begins trying to translate Bonny’s scrawls, reading as she paces down the corridor to return to the task, or person, rather, she had been occupied with before the post boy’s arrival.

_Dear Nancy_

_This week has been rife with coincidences in my favour. I am writing to you from Havana, a Spanish settlement where we are docked for a few days of rest. Nagging Marius’s ear off about writing to you paid off in full when he heard word of a ship here as well, bound for London, the Captain of which I will pass this letter on to in good faith it will be delivered. If the fellow doesn’t nab my coin and throw my message to the sea, it should reach you. Hopefully intact._

_As a result of my nattering, Marius has forbidden to see me and barred me from his cabin, no doubt planning to heap me with the worst of the ship’s duties on the morrow when we depart and return to sea, but so long as my words are on their way to you, I won’t mind._

_Tensions rise between Britain, Spain, and France over conflicting powers and alliances left fractured after a war that happened not too long ago. We’ve been stationed with a small fleet off the coast of North America, mostly to provide an assertive presence while taking orders as they come from government._

_There’ve been a few skirmishes with foreign ships, but nothing so dramatic as you’re thinking, I assure you. All being well, peace will be made among the nations soon so we won’t have to dither here much longer. Marius has warmed to the other Captains in our fleet, though he keeps his distance from them when he can._

_Between you and I, he seems anxious about impressing them. I can’t tell you how many times he’s snapped at us about taking pride in our behaviour and appearance,_ _although many of the naval officers I’ve met so far aboard the ships in our fleet revel in dice and card games and the decadent pleasures of mischief just as much as we do while their Captains are occupied with formal matters below deck._

_Although I’m sure you feel compelled to write to me, I fear I don’t have an address to give you where your letters can be sent. We move spontaneously from port to port, so until we return to England and I can make haste to see you, please be patient. I know it’s one of your many virtues._

_I suppose I should end this letter on a romantic note. I would enclose many a sultry verse, but I fear I’m too sunburnt and parched to think much of anything right now. Let’s just say the sea would be a lot less dreary with your company, and my cabin bed warmer. Promise me a drink when I see you again._

_Yours faithfully,_

_Bonny_

Nancy’s mouth twists into an amused sneer. She looks down at the man crouched on all fours in front of her, resting one booted foot on his back.

“What does ‘decadent’ mean?” she asks him, rolling her eyes at the muffled groan that slips out from the cloth gag wound around his mouth. “You’re no help.”

The feeling of excitement fizzling in her chest soon fades with the realisation that this letter of Bonny’s will likely be the only one she receives for the month. Bonny could write a hundred letters, but most of them would never reach her doorstep _—_ lost at sea, mishandled in the post, or simply never having the opportunity to be sent off Bonny’s ship. They would be left stuffed inside the folds of her coat, forgotten about until they shrivelled into illegible scraps.

Nancy makes her displeasure known with several cracks of her birch against the thighs of the man paying for her services. His doughy face creases in pain (though not necessarily _only_ in pain) and he yelps, squirming on aching arms and knees. She grabs a hold of the back of his neck, the rolls of fat that gather under her fingers speckled with sweat, and prods the handle of her birch at the welts that have risen over his skin.

“You’re a good footrest,” she remarks. “But you’d be an even better one if you kept that useless hole in your face _shut_.”

He responds to her chastising with a whine in the back of his throat but doesn’t protest any further. Taking count of the handfuls of coins scattered on the table, Nancy wonders if she can afford a new neck scarf. She has enough to put aside for rent, but the few farthings and pennies left over aren’t much of a luxury.

Nancy sits down in a chair at the table, fiddling with a coin in her gloved fingers while pondering what colour fabric Bonny would like. Most of the clothing she owns is dark, save for a few dark green and burgundy articles. Bonny’s probably seen enough blue on her voyage to feel sick, but Nancy would sooner break her own neck than wrap it in pink.

The wretch at her feet moans again and she sighs brusquely, swishing her birch through the air so it smacks against the floor.

“What?” she demands, yanking the gag off from around his mouth.

He takes a moment to catch his breath, wetting his lips with his tongue. “I, uh _—_ ” He pants, fumbling for the right words, and nods timidly towards the letter in her hand. “There’s a _—_ ”

Nancy turns the letter over, staring down at the drawing pencilled in the bottom corner. A flush creeps into her cheeks and she shoves the letter down onto the table, obscuring the illustration of a smiling merwoman, the creature’s wavy dark hair spilling down her shoulders and set of bared breasts, with her palm.

“Eyes down!” she barks to the man cowering at her feet, raising her birch threateningly. He whips his head around to stare at the floor, a shudder rippling down his spine.

 _If she ever makes it back here,_ Nancy thinks, grimacing at Bonny’s sketch, _I’ll kill her_.

After seeing her cull out and birching three more in the evening, Nancy leaves her house for a few minutes of peace. Breathing in the stench of squalor, meat, and chimney smoke in the air, she lets her eyes slide across the narrow stretch of dirt that is Russell Street.

Wedged-together houses made of brick and stone row both sides of the street, mud still wet from the rain squeezing between the slabs of stone paving the ground and causing them to jut out at dangerously steep angles. She should be prouder of the house she owns. It is a shining mark of her progress since her escape from Golden Square, but it is cold and lonely within its walls.

She remembers the years she had spent living with Margaret after their escape from Quigley’s. They had slept on the streets, huddling together for warmth, begging for food (or stealing it, when they could), and avoiding every nobleman who crossed their path in case one of them recognised their faces and dragged them back to Golden Square.

Nancy often had nightmares of Quigley’s impending wrath during that time. She was sure Margaret shared them though the other woman swore she didn’t fear the bitch anymore. Eventually, both of them had found a place to stay in the house that now solely belongs to Nancy, paying for board there with the sum of money they had stolen from Quigley and the purses they lifted from unsuspecting culls the night of their escape.

While Margaret fucked men in one room, Nancy birched them in the other. They pooled their profits together, revelling in their newfound freedom. Like all things, however, their arrangement hadn’t lasted. Margaret found a husband and house of her own, leaving Nancy to live on her own.

Not that she minds. Although affording the rent on her own makes for an exhausting workload, Nancy prefers solitude. Or so she tells herself to ease the sting of Margaret’s absence.

Sick of the taste of self-pity on her tongue, she retires back inside her house to bed and dreams of chasing Bonny through a dark maze of alleyways, reaching out and grasping at her coat. Her fingers fall through, clutching at air. Bonny disappears, blurred glances of her visible around street corners and amidst crowds of people flocking down faraway streets.

Nancy wakes both infuriated and terrified by the vision, her body flooded with panic that seeps into the marrow of her bones like a foreboding omen.

The next morning, Nancy sees the little girl again, the one with soft blonde ringlets of hair being herded warily by her blind mother through Russell Street. When Nancy looks closer, she realises in truth it’s quite the other way around. The daughter has her mother by the hand, guiding her along with patient murmurs of praise.

The mother is a preacher of sorts, Nancy has discovered, insistent about inducting others into her religion. She and her daughter often preach on street corners, much to the disdain of the people inhabiting said streets.

Today seems to be Russell Street’s turn. Her fellow neighbours aren’t shy about showing their disdain, shoving brusquely past the blind mother when she attempts to engage them in discussion about God and sin. A few people stop as they pass by to spit at the feet of mother and daughter both, hissing scathing remarks under their breath.

Nancy smacks her birch across the ankles of one that gets too close to the girl, sending them running, but when she steps in to try and convince the mother she should take her preaching and her daughter someplace else, anywhere _friendlier_ than here, she receives nothing but the offering of a bible verse.

She politely declines, watching as mother and daughter amble further up the street. She takes a moment to reflect on the small golden crucifix she had seen hanging around the mother’s neck. Her mother used to pray sometimes, she’s sure of it. Before meals, perhaps, scant as they were. She wasn’t the overbearingly religious sort by any means, at least from what Nancy remembers of her.

Only vague memories remain from those early years of her life before her mother had left her at the workhouse. Grainy flashes of her mother’s hands and smile, but never her face. She would give up so many of her fondest memories if only for one of her mother’s face, but she had been too young to cling to many memories.

Like countless others, her mother was poor. Nancy had been starving, the workhouse mother later told her, so malnourished and underfed her ribs showed through her clothing. She doesn’t resent her mother now for making that hard choice to leave her. She had no way of knowing about the horrors that would befall her daughter later in life and the childhood that would be robbed from her at Golden Square.

From time to time, however, during the private and quieter moments of the night, she grieves for a mother who she never really got the chance to know, yearning childishly that things could have been different for them both — had life been kinder.

~~**O** ~~

Marius strokes the underside of his jaw, feeling the coarse dark red hairs there. He takes a long moment to brace himself to enter Bonny’s cabin, but inside, the cramped space isn’t as untidy as he expects. Bonny is writing at her desk – nothing unusual – her back to him as she scrawls into her journal. She is unperturbed by the ship rocking to and fro, all too used to the swaying motion caused by the waves slapping the ship’s wooden hull.

“Have you eaten? I didn’t see you at dinner.” Marius reaches out, picking up a worn book lying open on Bonny’s bed. Examining it curiously, he flicks through a few pages, noting the title on the spine. “Have you been brushing up on your French?” he asks, his voice flecked with surprise.

“You asked me to mediate your meetings with your fellow Captains.”

“Who speak English, as we do,” Marius points out.

“I thought that —” Bonny pauses, tossing the pencil in her fingers down to let it roll across the desk. “I thought that if I learned, I could impress them.”

“You don’t need to impress them. Any one of those men can see you’re unmatched when it comes to navigation on the sea. Are you trying to impress me?” He lays a hand on her shoulder, shaking it encouragingly to try and rouse the spirit in her he is used to. “ _Qu’avez-vous?_ ”

“ _Éperdu d’amour_.”

Marius squares his jaw. He slots the book in his hand back onto the nearby shelf, muttering under his breath, “Ah, the _prostituée_.”

He doesn’t speak quietly enough. Bonny shakes off his arm and leaps out of her chair. “Don’t you dare call her that!” she shouts in a fit of rage before remembering herself. “Sir.”

As Bonny’s haze of anger clears, she deigns to bow her head an inch lower respectfully, but the way her chin is jutted out at him in such an insulted manner causes Marius to laugh. “You’ve been miserable these past few months. If not me, is there anyone you can confide in?”

He sees the uncertainty on her face as she mulls over this. There’s never really been another soul on board the ship that Bonny had gotten to know well enough to consider them a friend of hers. A strong alliance had been forged between his crew through hard work and shared experiences on _The Admiral_.

A reliance on each other’s trades and bravery in battle meant each of his crewmen had found their own places within a well-organised pack of sorts, but Bonny knows nothing of her fellow crew members other than their names. She hasn’t any clue of their favourite dishes or desserts – they all ate the same during mealtimes.

She doesn’t know their ambitions, motivations, or desires, which is all for the better. They keep to themselves, as Marius pays them to.

“Hmph. Never mind.” Absent-mindedly, Marius strokes the round face of the pocket watch hung on a thin chain in his pocket. He had spent several long months observing the original Captain of _The Admiral_ , taking meticulous care to slip into the man’s clothes and mannerisms as if they were his own. His fine collection of expensive pocket watches had swayed him at first sight. “The news I have to tell you will be uplifting to hear, I hope.”

“Is the war over?”

“The war hasn’t _begun_ , Bonny. Trust me, you’ll know when it has.”

“Do you ever feel conflicted about the fighting, Captain? These are Spanish, Prussian, and _French_ soldiers Britain is battling against, and your homeland they’re trying to conquer.”

“Why would I? I care little for my heritage. My mother was French, my father British. I was born from one in the land of another.” The lies roll so easily off his tongue now, it’s getting harder to recall that he ever used to practice them in front of a mirror, repeating each line until he knew them off by heart and lost his telling stutter. With disciplined practice, he had grown out of a scrappy boy’s trembly voice into the highly esteemed confidence of a man’s. “I’m giving you a week, Bonny.”

“A week?”

“A week of leave for all of the crew. The other Captains and I have discussed it and we agree that remaining here without orders is pointless…”

“We’ve lost garrisons. Minorca,” Bonny points out.

“Be that as it may, we’ve done good work seizing those French ships. Everyone is getting restless remaining at sea for so long. This dormancy, it’s unhealthy, and our gunner is still bedridden from that damn stew he ate last week. We’ll sail for Eddings tomorrow and depart again after seven days. I trust you’ll be accountable for returning to the ship on time. The fighting won’t go anywhere, but I fear if I let you off the leash for too long, you might.”

“You can trust me, sir.”

“And you should cut your hair before we dock in London,” Marius adds, nodding to the black curls hanging over Bonny’s forehead. “You look shaggy.”

~~**O** ~~

Nancy is out of breath by the time she reaches the coffeehouse. She’s had to round back the way she came three times already to her house after accidentally leaving her birch behind in her hurry to leave, and then a second time when she’d forgotten to lock her own front door.

She can hear the commotion inside the coffeehouse from at least a street away. A cacophony of squabbling voices, breaking porcelain, and screeching furniture filters through an ajar window, the chaos inside the normally quiet establishment an unmistakable mark of Bonny’s presence. Nancy ventures through the entranceway, sidling past several men lingering in the foyer with her birch clenched in her fist.

“I told you already, I’m French!”

Bonny’s voice is instantly recognisable, echoing down the corridor in front of Nancy with the same striking confidence she remembers.

She enters the wider main room just in time to witness Bonny duck behind the newspaper in both of her hands to avoid the coffee cup hurled at her head. Hot mess splashes over the bench she is sitting at, staining the hardwood, and the bad throw leads to an uproar of laughter from the next bench over, crowded by rows of all different classes of men sitting together wedged hip-to-hip.

“Do we look _blind_ to you?” one demands.

“Who let that sailor-woman in?” another man cries out. “This is a respectable establishment!”

“French men have much more effeminate faces than the English breed,” Bonny calls out. “Not that I blame you for being confused, good sirs; it’s a common mistake that you’ve made.”

“I’ve been to France,” a voice barks back to Bonny. “I never saw any boys with such soft faces as you say!”

“Then you were obviously too busy looking at the girls, sir,” Bonny retorts.

Another wave of amused laughter rolling throughout the room with hands slapping the benchtops in rowdy applause.

While Nancy is edging her way through the narrow gap between two benches, one man lifts his gaze to behold her looming behind him. Aghast, he sinks back into his chair. “Christ, they’re letting in just about anybody nowadays.”

She glares at him with a surly look. Unable to help herself, she calls out behind her, “Didn’t I see you last week, Reginald?”, smirking at the bewildered looks shared amongst the man’s companions and their subsequent chuckling as she passes them by.

A lopsided grin slides onto Bonny’s face when she sights Nancy across the room. “Here, look, see that woman over there? That’s my wife,” she declares, thumping her fist against the table. “How dare you suggest I’m not a man when I have my own domesticated, perfectly fertile wife right over there?”

Nancy freezes, standing as still as a hare when a number of heads turn in her direction. Some men laugh, others disconcerted by her appearance.

“This is insanity,” somebody groans. “Somebody throw both of them out!”

“Or don’t,” a different voice chimes in. “This is the best entertainment we’ve had in weeks!”

Eventually, the men simmer down, bored enough of Bonny’s antics that they ignore her entirely and return to their beverages and idle conversations. Grinning, Bonny encourages Nancy over with a wave, extending a leg and patting her thigh to offer it as a vacant seat. Nancy only scoffs, shoving Bonny to get her to shift over on the bench. Uttering a noise of annoyance in the back of her throat, she hitches up her dress skirt, kicking a leg over the bench and sitting down.

“Your hair’s grown longer,” Nancy observes, combing her fingers through the wavy black curls at the nape of Bonny’s neck.

“I’ve missed you,” Bonny murmurs, resting her forehead against Nancy’s. Despite being surprised, Nancy doesn’t pull away from the contact. She’s rather touched by it to be honest. She chuckles, placing a gloved palm on the back of Bonny’s head to show her mutual feelings of relief.

Leaning back after a moment, she reaches out and sweeps aside the locks of hair Bonny has pulled in front of her ears in an attempt to hide the thin faded scar of a healed cut, starting just under the corner of one eye and skirting across her cheekbone for about the length of Nancy’s littlest finger.

“You’ll be very unimpressed if I tell you how I got that one, so I won’t say,” Bonny butts in before Nancy can scold her carelessness. “May I borrow your hand?”

Nancy squints, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What for?”

“I have a feeling if I try to kiss you here in front of all these people, you’ll slap me so hard I’ll see stars,” Bonny answers, a devilish smirk playing on her mouth. “But you can’t deny me the pleasure of a simple touch after being away for so long.”

“Isn’t it enough to bask in my glorious presence?” Nancy asks sarcastically.

“Of course it’s enough,” Bonny answers, but behind her confident façade is the look of a whimpering puppy, so Nancy lifts her hand and offers it to Bonny tentatively, her cautiousness melting away with the first brush of lips past her knuckles.

Silently to herself, she curses her decision to wear gloves prior that morning.

“Here, let me show you a trick a friend in Eddings taught me…” Fishing out a pack of cards from her coat, Bonny begins shuffling them, fanning out the deck to show Nancy. “Go ahead and pick a card.”

Nancy rolls her eyes, plucking a card. “There.”

“Alright…” Bonny splits the deck in half and chooses a card from one half, flipping it over. “Here. Is this your card?”

“No.”

“N — really?” Shaking her head in disbelief, Bonny slips the king of hearts between her teeth, picking another card. “What about this one? Seven of clubs?”

Nancy shakes her head.

Bonny drops the cards with a short disappointed huff. “Damn. I could’ve sworn I learned that trick off by heart already. Wait…” She gestures for Nancy to be still, reaching a hand under her shirt collar to retrieve a card tucked somewhere inappropriate on her person.

“You absolute cheat!” Nancy exclaims, smacking the card out of Bonny’s hand. The other woman throws her head back and laughs while Nancy tries to chastise her with a straight face, “How many girls have you swooned with that parlour trick while you’ve been away from Europe?”

“Not one, I promise,” Bonny answers. “How can I think of sharing my bed with any other lady when my head is full of thoughts of you?”

“You’re a bad liar, Lancaster,” Nancy snaps back, though the thought of occupying Bonny’s thoughts without any effort on her part sparks thrill inside her chest. “Truth be told, I wouldn’t have minded if you’d gone looking for some sport. A voracious appetite like yours, you must be desperate for a night of companionship.”

Bonny raises an eyebrow, trying to gauge her meaning.

“I’ll let the ladies of the night know that you’re looking.”

Another grin spreads across Bonny’s mouth and she adopts a sardonic tone of voice. “Alright, you’ve caught me. I’m having an affair with a lovely blonde woman named Lola who I intend to spend the rest of my life with working in a travelling circus.”

Nancy reaches out to clip her around the ear, but her arm falls short. Instead, she cups a hand to the side of Bonny’s face, pressing a kiss swiftly under her ear. Bonny tilts her head into Nancy’s palm with a contented sigh, flashing dark eyes full of longing towards her. “You know I’m only joking, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Nancy pats Bonny’s arm, standing up from the bench. “Now, get off your arse. We’ve lingered here for long enough.”

It’s the strangest sense of déjà vu, strolling with Bonny through the streets as they had done months ago, the night air cool on their skin.

This time, Bonny takes the lead, one arm looped through Nancy’s. She insists on walking her home, which Nancy wouldn’t mind if not for the map she refers to often in her other hand. She disregards Nancy’s advice on the quicker routes to take in favour of her own, which lead them to a number of unsavoury places – dead ends, hideaways, and even a den of unclothed bodies making love in the name of some private club.

Bonny tilts her head, staring into the crowded space with an expression both parts amused and off-put. “Shall we join them?” she proposes, suppressing an immature snort of laughter when Nancy aims a well-placed kick to the back of her knee, twists Bonny around, and pulls her down a different path.

“I’d say my sense of direction is as sharp as it’s ever been.”

“Save your boasting for when we make it to Russell Street. If we’re not murdered by some shadowy figure first,” Nancy mutters. “Where are you staying?”

“I regret to say I haven’t found a place of lodging just yet.”

“Perhaps that Lola of yours has a room you can borrow,” Nancy suggests dryly.

“Very funny,” Bonny replies. “I’ll ask after a room at the inn down the road.”

“Nonsense. You’ll stay at mine.”

“I couldn’t possibly impose –”

“Careful,” Nancy warns her. “Your ladylikeness is showing. You will impose, or else I’ll have to make you so drunk you can’t stand.”

“Speaking of.” From the bag slung over her shoulder, Bonny flaunts a bottle with a smug look on her face, handing it to Nancy. “Madame Geneva, for you. Consider it payment for tolerating my presence.”

~~**O** ~~

“The bedroom’s over there.” Nancy waves a hand to the room down the corridor, pulling the door shut behind her as she and Bonny enter her house. She’s overly conscious of the cobwebs in the corners of the roof, dust coating the few pieces of furniture that she owns, and the late-night chill seeping in under the front door, but Bonny takes no notice and saunters up to the nearby table, leaning against it.

“God, if I so much as look at a bed, I might fall over.” She covers her mouth to yawn, glancing over at the corridor leading to the bedroom. “Hold on. If that’s the only bed, where are you sleeping?”

“I’ll take the spot by the fire,” Nancy answers simply, gesturing to the floor next to the unlit hearth.

“No, you will not!” Bonny shakes her head firmly. “Take the bed, Nancy. I’ve spent months at a time at sea, I can cram myself into all sorts of places.” Her eyes narrow as Nancy’s mouth twitches upwards into a mischievous grin. Before Nancy can say anything, Bonny rolls her eyes and groans with an impatient gesture of her hand, “Oh, get the bloody drinks.”

Nancy does so, retrieving two glasses from the shelf and lighting a fire in the hearth. Both of them sit down before it, Bonny touching her glass of gin to the lip of Nancy’s with a clink. Light from the orange flames dances across their faces as they drink in silence, savouring the sensation of warmth filling their stomachs and bubbles tickling their tongues.

“What are you thinking about?” Nancy asks, noticing how Bonny’s gaze is lingering on the bodice and skirt of her dress. Her penetrative eyes are deep in thought.

“My mother made me dress in petticoats like that once,” Bonny admits, nodding to the dark fabric of Nancy’s dress. “She had me fitted for a dress…it must have been the night before I was to be handed off to marry some earl born into his riches. I fought tooth and nail with her about wearing one. I put on her favourite sweet voice of mine, the one I’d always gotten my way with since I was little. It took five of the maids to hold me down and tie me into those horrific stays.”

Nancy watches Bonny sip thoughtfully at her drink. Grimacing at the bitter taste, she slides the empty glass over to Nancy with a beseeching look. “Breeches suit you better anyway,” Nancy tells her, pouring both of their vessels full again. “You’re a sad drunk, Bonny. I don’t want to see you frowning, not tonight.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m an easy smiler,” Bonny chuckles. She lifts her glass up and tips it back, swallowing all of it in one gulp. “Mother made me practice. I only wish I could have taken my sisters with me when I left that awful house.”

“You had sisters?”

“Bonny, Bethany, and Beatrice. It sounds like the start of a bad rhyme, doesn’t it?” Bonny asks, stifling a noise that’s half-hiccup and half-laugh. “I was always getting them into trouble and avoiding all the blame. They fit into the prim and proper roles far better than I did, but some part of me…well, I always thought if either of them had been born first instead of me and they were faced with the same circumstances of an arranged marriage, they’d have taken me with them if they ran away. What about you, Nancy? What’s your greatest regret?”

Nancy pauses, mulling over the question. She slides a fingertip around the ring of her glass – a nervous habit. “I wish I’d held tighter to my mother’s hand the day she left me at the workhouse. I don’t think I understood exactly what was happening until she gave me her ring.” She reaches up to touch the gold ring on the ribbon hung around her neck, pinching the cold band of metal between her fingers. “It had never left her finger before, so when she took it off to give to me, I knew something was wrong – but when I looked up, she was gone. The workhouse mother whisked me inside and that was that. I wish I’d fought harder to stay with her.”

“She never came back?” Bonny asks.

“She wanted to give me a chance at a better life. I know that now,” Nancy explains. “And look where I’ve ended up. The lap of luxury.” She pats Bonny’s thigh with a gloved hand, forcing a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, Bonny. I haven’t given up hope of finding her again, though I’m not sure she’s still looking for me.”

“She is,” Bonny says.

“Really?” Nancy smiles wryly in amusement. “How do you know that?”

“I just know.”

Nancy pauses, savouring the taste of gin on her tongue. “It’s my turn to ask you a question. Forgetting the marriage, if you could have all of it back, your life with your mother and sisters – the friends you used to have back then – would you take it?”

“No, I don’t think I would,” Bonny responds.

“Ah. Because of Marius,” Nancy surmises, but Bonny shakes her head, confusing her. Perplexed, Nancy raises an eyebrow. “Your ship?”

“No.”

“Why, then?” Nancy asks. Bonny remains silent, staring at her, and Nancy takes a moment to understand the other woman’s meaning. Her expression softens. “Me?”

Bonny sets her glass down by her side, chuckling to herself before she murmurs, “Actually, I was going to say my sword –”

Nancy leans forwards and takes Bonny in her mouth, grasping a hold of her wrists and pushing her back to the floor. Gradually, they fall, Nancy’s hands tangling in Bonny’s hair and sliding down her waist to the dips and curves of her hipbones. Lying underneath her, Bonny joins her arms behind Nancy, draping them loosely against the small of her back.

Nancy breathes against her neck, trailing her fingers across the arcing wing of the swallow tattooed on her collarbone.

Her lips taste of the gin she’s drunk. Tart, piquant, and forbidden. Nancy presses her thumb gently into the hollow of Bonny’s throat, tilting her head back. Bonny’s eyes open, meeting Nancy’s, and she stares up at her with a serene smile before noticing the pitcher Nancy is holding above her head.

Bonny lurches upright as cold water splashes her face, pushing the wet strands of hair out of her eyes. “You –!” she splutters, the front of her shirt sopping wet.

“That’s for your artwork of that mermaid,” Nancy smirks. “You ruined the mood I’d set for a cull.” Dusting off her dress skirt, she stands up, leaving Bonny sat stunned on the floor. “Well, I’m off to bed. You’re welcome to a blanket from the cupboard if you want one.”

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell I've recently bought a French to English dictionary and therefore want to show off every pretty and fun phrase I can get my grubby fingers on? No? Excellent! I promise to move on from the boring Marius plot points to more of Nancy and Bonny's relationship in future installments (;
> 
> Also, did all of us read that little tidbit Kate Fleetwood shared on Instagram about Nancy's backstory and how the ring she wears was given to her by her mother as a keepsake before she was left at the workhouse as a child? I'm dying for more Nancy lore that we never got to see during the course of the show, but I suppose that mysteriousness about her is part of what makes her such a compelling character.
> 
> Lastly, some French translations if ya need 'em and (like I would be) can't be bothered to look them up. Don't take my word that they're accurate — I am relying solely on a dictionary and I've never spoken a word of French in my life.
> 
> Qu’avez-vous?: What's the matter?  
> Éperdu d’amour: lovesickness  
> Prostituée: prostitute


End file.
